"Know where to find the information and how to use it - That's the secret of success" -

Albert Einstein

Social Responsibility

HCI takes pride in publicly supporting a single-payer universal healthcare system for all Americans. Because of our knowledge and insights, we have a moral duty and public interest responsibility to proactively participate in the national healthcare public policy dialogue.

HCI's healthcare management, planning, and
public policy consultants are available to ensure that healthcare
consumers and purchasers are able to access timely information,
which may help them to:

...better
control healthcare costs and eliminate excessive spending on service
vendors.

...avert the illusions of superficial reform and establish
proactive strategies and support rational government polices,
which will substantively address quality, patient safety, and
cost-savings opportunities.

...access
the best healthcare diagnostic and treatment options available
for healthcare consumers.

...facilitate
the process of obtaining the most current medical outcomes data
for specific healthcare providers.

Corporate-financed elections of Congress and the President --- special interests' lobbyists pay-to-play; many Congressional Members and their staff are corrupted; Americans accept leftovers; costs escalate; coverage benefits are slashed. Political campaigns should be publicly-financed through tax revenues. It is the best investment Americans could make in our government.

Most Americans are complacent and uninformed --- disinterest and reliance upon special interests nurture lucrative economic opportunities; greed and power trump Americans' healthcare access and well-being. The media have masked the truths about our dysfunctional healthcare non-system. It tends to perceive the paradigm in the context of an employer-based insurance model.

Insurance and other special interests have proactively and aggressively under-mined the public interest in some Americans' pursuit of a Medicare-expanded or single payer universal healthcare system public policy. They create new insurance products to deter more in-depth analysis of the costs associated with administrative expenses, marketing costs, operating overhead, and bloated profits and executive compensation.

Ideological conservatives have used gay marriage, flag-burning, tax cuts, earmarks, hollow political ethics reform, and other diversions to gridlock Congress and forestall meaningful change to the detriment of most Americans.

Incremental/token reform (insurance-creep) has been used as camouflage for cosmetic, superficial, and ineffectual change. The piecemeal approach serves to buy time and sustained profitability for special interests inclusive of the insurance industry, for-profit healthcare providers, and financial services industries.Politicians who claim Americans aren't ready for fundamental systemic change are wrong. They would be well-advised to accelerate their advisors and consultants' understanding of it and lead more candid and forthright information campaigns in support of it.

Progressive advocacy organizations supportive of a single payer universal healthcare system engage in a Silo Effect --- they lack common goals, become competitive for attention and support, lack cooperation, fail to communicate and coordinate with each other, fail to educate, and fail to trust the public's ability to process information. Anecdotes and slogans supplant the drumbeat of facts necessary to embolden and empower broad bipartisan support for fundamental change. Politicians respond with promises of incremental and fragmented 'insurance' remedies, which have no prospect of establishing universal solutions for the healthcare access, accountability, affordability, quality, and patient safety crises.

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it,

ignorance may deride it,

but in the end, there it is.--- Winston Churchill

'CONSUMER-DRIVEN
HEALTH CARE'?

The
architects (vested financial interests) of 'consumer-driven
healthcare' have convinced many employers to
shift more costs to employees. This is the latest
in a series of panaceas that have been promoted
for more than two decades to curb excessive healthcare
costs. Higher deductibles, increased co payments,
and larger employee payroll deductions for group
healthcare plans are characteristic of 'consumer-driven
healthcare' (aka opportunity-driven or enrichment-driven healthcare). It is neither
driven by consumers nor beneficial to them. It has
been packaged as 'consumer-driven' because
cost-shifting to consumers required tactful marketing
and acceptance by employees and beneficiaries. We
know that 'managed care' is about managing
cost, which is notable for neither effectively controlling
costs nor ensuring higher quality healthcare.

Managed
care has significantly reduced unnecessary care
and costs when compared to the fee-for-service system,
which preceded it. Managed care has also been known
to stonewall or withhold life-sustaining care and
establish arbitrary, irrational care constraints.
Figuratively, the Titanic replaced Pearl Harbor,
but the ever-increasing financial costs to employers
are intolerable and healthcare consumers are experiencing
reduced benefits and unaffordable costs.

Managed
care, other than some staff model prototypes, has
been a profit-driven splint on a hemorrhage of out
of control healthcare costs. Managed care companies
and their supporting cast of vendors, brokers, and
consultants have a vested interest in sustaining
massive, unnecessary, and redundant administrative,
marketing, information systems, and related self-preservation
expenses. These costs and other systemic inefficiencies
waste finite financial resources that may otherwise
be invested in ensuring accessible, affordable,
and high quality healthcare for all Americans.

Our
principals consider the illusion and misnomer promoted
as 'consumer-driven healthcare' imprudent
and ineffectual long-term in controlling healthcare
costs for healthcare purchasers. It is impotent
in enhancing healthcare quality for consumers. It
is another roadblock to America's compelling need
to move toward an equitable single payer universal
healthcare system. The adverse consequences of this
absurd, temporary profit preserver for private sector insurers and healthcare benefits consultants/insurance
brokers may become transparent to healthcare purchasers,
government legislators, and consumers within a few
years. Meanwhile, consumers and purchasers should
utilize healthcare information and other tools available
to them and support innovative single-payer universal healthcare public policy initiatives.

SELECTING
HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS - QUALITY INDICATORS

Selecting
competent physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes
for your families
is among the most important responsibilities of
enlightened healthcare consumers. Most group and
individual healthcare benefits plans do not provide
tools for helping consumers access information to
empower healthcare consumers and their families.
Healthcare information is vital to the process of
consumer empowerment.

HCI
encourages consumers to secure objective information
and then, discreetly informally interview nursing
staff, other patients and patients' families, and
other physicians to determine which physician, hospital,
or nursing home to entrust with the care of you
or your loved ones. Consumers should commit as much
or more time to identifying the best available healthcare
resources as they do in researching other major
family investments. It can literally mean the difference
between a positive medical outcome and tragedy.

Each client situation is unique.
We approach each client's set of circumstances with enthusiasm
and unlimited problem-solving assets.

Employee healthcare benefits and public policy consulting should
offer clients independent analytical, evaluation, design,
negotiation, interpretation, and implementation resources to ensure
the best outcomes for healthcare purchasers and healthcare consumers.
HCI provides clients with the best available solutions to healthcare
cost and quality challenges for both healthcare purchasers and
consumers.

We offer quality healthcare consulting services to clients who
seek to achieve enhancements in the quality of services, which
they purchase, and significantly improve control over their healthcare
expenditures. We are invariably candid and forthright in our assessments
and recommendations on behalf of our clients. Clients are confident
that they will receive quality consultation and additional value
for their investment in our services. HCI provides the highest
level of expertise and objectivity in the healthcare consulting
industry proficiently, cost-effectively, and with complete integrity.